Gymnastics at the 2004 Summer Olympics

Gymnastics at the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad
Pictograms for artistic (left), rhythmic (center), and trampoline (right)
Venue	Olympic Indoor Hall (artistic and trampoline) Galatsi Olympic Hall (rhythmic)
Dates	14 – 29 August 2004

At the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece, three disciplines of gymnastics were contested: artistic gymnastics (August 14–23), rhythmic gymnastics (August 26–29) and trampoline (August 20–21). The artistic gymnastics and trampoline events were held at the Olympic Indoor Hall and the rhythmic gymnastics events were held at the Galatsi Olympic Hall.

Artistic gymnastics

Format of competition

The competition format was largely the same as at the 2000 Summer Olympics. All participating gymnasts, including those who were not part of a team, participated in a qualification round. The results of this competition determined which teams and individuals participated in the remaining competitions, which included:

• The team competition, in which the eight highest scoring teams from qualifications competed. For the first time, each team of six gymnasts could only have three gymnasts perform on each apparatus, and all three scores counted toward the team total.
• The all-around competition, in which only the twenty-four highest scoring individuals in the all-around competed. For the first time, each country was limited to only two gymnasts in the all-around final.
• The event finals, in which the eight highest scoring individuals on each apparatus competed. Each country was limited to two gymnasts in each apparatus final.

Medalists - Men's Events

Event	Gold	Silver	Bronze
Team all-around	Japan (JPN) Takehiro Kashima Hisashi Mizutori Daisuke Nakano Hiroyuki Tomita Naoya Tsukahara Isao Yoneda	United States (USA) Jason Gatson Morgan Hamm Paul Hamm Brett McClure Blaine Wilson Guard Young	Romania (ROU) Marian Drăgulescu Ilie Daniel Popescu Dan Nicolae Potra Răzvan Dorin Şelariu Ioan Silviu Suciu Marius Urzică
Individual all-around	Paul Hamm  United States	Kim Dae-eun  South Korea	Yang Tae-young  South Korea
Floor exercise	Kyle Shewfelt  Canada	Marian Drăgulescu  Romania	Yordan Yovchev  Bulgaria
Horizontal bar	Igor Cassina  Italy	Paul Hamm  United States	Isao Yoneda  Japan
Parallel bars	Valeri Goncharov  Ukraine	Hiroyuki Tomita  Japan	Li Xiaopeng  China
Pommel horse	Teng Haibin  China	Marius Urzică  Romania	Takehiro Kashima  Japan
Rings	Dimosthenis Tampakos  Greece	Yordan Yovchev  Bulgaria	Jury Chechi  Italy
Vault	Gervasio Deferr  Spain	Jevgēņijs Saproņenko  Latvia	Marian Drăgulescu  Romania

Medalists - Women's Events

Event	Gold	Silver	Bronze
Team all-around	Romania (ROU) Oana Ban Alexandra Eremia Cătălina Ponor Monica Roşu Nicoleta Daniela Şofronie Silvia Stroescu	United States (USA) Mohini Bhardwaj Annia Hatch Terin Humphrey Courtney Kupets Courtney McCool Carly Patterson	Russia (RUS) Ludmila Ezhova Svetlana Khorkina Maria Krioutchkova Anna Pavlova Elena Zamolodchikova Natalia Ziganshina
Individual all-around	Carly Patterson  United States	Svetlana Khorkina  Russia	Zhang Nan  China
Balance beam	Cătălina Ponor  Romania	Carly Patterson  United States	Alexandra Eremia  Romania
Floor exercise	Cătălina Ponor  Romania	Nicoleta Daniela Şofronie  Romania	Patricia Moreno  Spain
Uneven bars	Émilie Le Pennec  France	Terin Humphrey  United States	Courtney Kupets  United States
Vault	Monica Roşu  Romania	Annia Hatch  United States	Anna Pavlova  Russia

Rhythmic gymnastics

Event	Gold	Silver	Bronze
Group all-around	Russia (RUS) Olesya Belugina Olga Glatskikh Tatiana Kurbakova Natalia Lavrova Yelena Posevina Elena Murzina	Italy (ITA) Elisa Blanchi Fabrizia D'Ottavio Marinella Falca Daniela Masseroni Elisa Santoni Laura Vernizzi	Bulgaria (BUL) Zhaneta Ilieva Eleonora Kezhova Zornitsa Marinova Kristina Rangelova Galina Tancheva Vladislava Tancheva
Individual all-around	Alina Kabaeva  Russia	Irina Tchachina  Russia	Anna Bessonova  Ukraine

Trampoline

Event	Gold	Silver	Bronze
Men's individual	Yuri Nikitin  Ukraine	Alexander Moskalenko  Russia	Henrik Stehlik  Germany
Women's individual	Anna Dogonadze  Germany	Karen Cockburn  Canada	Huang Shanshan  China

Medal table

Rank	Nation	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	Romania (ROU)	4	3	3	10
2	United States (USA)	2	6	1	9
3	Russia (RUS)	2	3	2	7
4	Ukraine (UKR)	2	0	1	3
5	Italy (ITA)	1	1	1	3
6	Japan (JPN)	1	1	2	4
7	Canada (CAN)	1	1	0	2
8	China (CHN)	1	0	3	4
9	Germany (GER)	1	0	1	2
	Spain (ESP)	1	0	1	2
11	France (FRA)	1	0	0	1
	Greece (GRE)	1	0	0	1
13	Bulgaria (BUL)	0	1	2	3
14	South Korea (KOR)	0	1	1	2
15	Latvia (LAT)	0	1	0	1
Total		18	18	18	54

Participating nations

A total of 252 gymnasts from 45 nations competed at the Athens Games.

Controversies

The gymnastics competition had scoring controversies, most prominently with the South Korean competitor Yang Tae-young.

Yang finished third in the men's individual all-around competition. However on the parallel bars one of his elements was mistaken for a simpler skill and was given a lower Start Value than had been previously awarded in both the team qualifying and team finals sessions at the Olympics. If it had been valued at a 10.0 during the all-around, and the rest of the meet had proceeded the same way, Yang might have finished in first place. After reviewing the situation, International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) officials acknowledged that the SV for the routine had indeed been incorrectly calculated, and suspended the three judges responsible for the error (Oscar Buitrago Reyes of Colombia, Benjamin Bango of Spain, and the head judge George Beckstead of the United States) but ruled that there was no way to change the results after the meet had concluded.^[1][2]

Further problems occurred in the men's horizontal bar competition when the scores awarded did not seem to match the routines performed. The situation came to a head when spectators in the arena reacted very strongly to a low score given to Russian Alexei Nemov, booing for 15 minutes and prompting the score to be reviewed. The boos subsided only when Nemov returned to the podium and personally appealed for calm so the rest of the competitors could complete their routines. The two judges who had given Nemov the lowest scores subsequently increased their scores without explanation before being ushered out by FIG officials.

The controversies led to the reconstruction of the scoring system which was implemented in 2006. The rule changes are credited as having encouraged more acrobatic activity and increasing difficulties on the high bar apparatus seen in later competitions.^[3]

See also

• Olympic medalists in gymnastics (men)
• Olympic medalists in gymnastics (women)
• 2003 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships

References

• Official Olympic Report
• www.gymnasticsresults.com
• www.gymn-forum.net

Gymnastics at the Summer Olympics
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